


Truths and Dares

by takawbelle



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Truth or Dare, Zutara Month 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23993035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takawbelle/pseuds/takawbelle
Summary: “If there was a chance we’ll get out of this alive, who would you kiss?” Toph’s voice cut through Zuko’s musings. “And that person has to be someone the rest of us know!”Leave it to Toph to scam him out of his easy escape.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 189
Collections: Zutara Month 2020





	Truths and Dares

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first-ever fic I wrote in more than a decade. Just discovered Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) at the ripe old age of 29 so here I am, compensating with a lot of fangirling. 
> 
> ATLA is not mine, will never be. Enjoy.
> 
> May 1: Flowers

“That’s not fair!” yelled Toph as she shoved a finger in Sokka’s face.

“Hey, I asked a question plain as day. I didn’t know you’d muddle it up by thinking it means differently and giving an answer based on your much better understanding!” sniffed Sokka.

“Maybe your question isn’t that plain as day after all!” 

By then, a vein was popping in Sokka’s neck. Toph only shrugged, indignation forgotten, and flopped on the sand. Her eyes were unstaring, unblinking at the sickle moon above. Aang was beside her, already curled asleep. 

Two bottles lay discarded a short distance from their bonfire. If a simple game of “truth or dare” could rile them up this badly, Zuko would have just have them chug through his father’s entire liquor cabinet. The truths and dares would still come anyway. 

Taking an unearned shot of rice wine, Zuko held up his hands and said, “Can’t we just give the bottle another spin?”

Before Sokka could protest, Suki flicked the neck of the bottle and it spun dizzyingly, firelight glinting off it, before slowing down and pointing to Zuko. She and Katara giggled.  


Sokka appeared mollified. “Of course we can ‘give the bottle another spin.’” He smugly waggled his eyebrows at Zuko. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” huffed Zuko. Based on Sokka’s last question, his wits have been dulled by the Fire Lord’s generous reserves of rice wine. It would be easy to slip out of some clumsily-worded question. 

“If there was a chance we’ll get out of this alive, who would you kiss?” Toph’s voice cut through Zuko’s musings. “And that person has to be someone the rest of us know!”  


Leave it to Toph to scam him out of his easy escape.

He stared fixedly at the point above Katara’s shoulder – he could not bring himself to look her in the eye – and said as simply as he could, “I’ll kiss Mai.” Sardonic Mai who has a fifty-fifty chance of peppering him with shurikens or kissing him mechanically if they do reunite when all this is over. 

He pretended not to notice Katara stiffening.

Familiar Mai. A Fire Nation noblewoman. The choice expected of him. 

And yet, as he breathed in the heady scent of fire lilies in his mother’s long-forgotten garden, he wondered if this is another of Uncle’s crossroads thing, when you get to choose between what is expected of you and what truly is your destiny.

“So, Mai, huh?” He could hear the pain underneath the wry smile in her voice.

He scowled, snapping his back into a bad imitation of the meditation he was attempting. “Are you guys still playing truth or dare?” He did not dare turn his head. 

Katara dropped beside him and rested her chin on her upturned knees, hands clasped around her legs. “The others went to bed not long after you left. The answers got boring, you know.”

The sickle moon was not enough to show her his burning face. A few heartbeats later, the stronger scent of crushed fire lilies tickled his nostrils. She brought the flower to her nose and inhaled. He breathed along with her.

“Well, it was a game of truth or dare,” he rasped, voice suddenly not working as it should.

“But it wasn’t,” she said plaintively. “The truth, I mean.”

It took him several tries before he got the words out. 

“No. I lied.”

He leaned towards her, his one hand supporting his shifted weight. His lips touched hers softly, as soft as the petals she crushed against her fingers. There was no intensity like the one he felt during the day when he practiced firebending, or when he railed against the lightning-torn sky. There was only a quiet softness, a gentle acceptance after much fighting. 

When he withdrew, he swore he saw her smile a little in the scarce moonlight. She laughed quietly, “You should just have chosen ‘dare’ and kissed me.”


End file.
